50 Years Of BBC Television News (2025)
To mark 50 years of BBC TV News, a look back on how stories were reported in each decade. Narrated by key figures including Charles Wheeler, Michael Buerk, Kate Adie, John Simpson and Jeremy Bowen.
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Episode 1 - 1954-1963
Release Date:Michael Buerk looks back at the birth of BBC Television News and how it showed the post-war world taking shape: the black and white era of Winston Churchill, the death of John F Kennedy and the birth of the pill, the Beatles and the permissive society
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Episode 2 - 1964-1973
Release Date:Charles Wheeler reflects on an age which saw America embroiled in the war in Vietnam, violent clashes over civil rights and Watergate; an age when 'mods' fought 'rockers' - and man landed on the moon.
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Episode 3 - 1974-1983
Release Date:Kate Adie remembers the three-day week, the IRA's mainland bombing campaign, Charles and Diana and the arrival of Britain's first woman Prime Minister, whose political fortunes were transformed when she took the country to war over the Falklands.
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Episode 4 - 1984-1993
Release Date:John Simpson looks at a decade of profound change. The Berlin Wall came down, while apartheid collapsed along with communism. Thatcher's Britain was transformed and tragedy came to Lockerbie, Enniskillen - and Ethiopia.
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Episode 5 - 1994-2004
Release Date:Jeremy Bowen introduces the age of 24-hour news, when the world watched the September 11th attacks live on television. Diana was killed in Paris; Concorde made its last flight; there were ware in Europe, Afghanistan and Iraq; and a new war - the War on Terror.